


Shepard’s ABC’s

by RedRavens



Series: Ad Astra [1]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Abortion, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-09 20:32:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18924484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedRavens/pseuds/RedRavens
Summary: Sophia Shepard wasn’t always the Commander, she wasn’t always a Specter.A more intimate look into Sophia’s life, one letter at a time.





	1. Absent

**Author's Note:**

> This is on-going, expect the rating to change as we deal with sex, murder & emotional neglect, between other darker themes.
> 
> Chapters will vary between Simple Present and Simple past. That’s something I felt needed a warning.

SOL SYSTEM - EARTH - ENGLAND - ESSEX - SEPTEMBER 2170 - AGE: 16

It's odd being stranded on a different planet, with people who swear they're your family, but who you have no recollection of.

Michael was off-world. He had signed up for the Alliance even before Mindoir had been attacked. Sophia was there, on Earth, with Grandma Olivia, Uncle Joseph and his wife Sarah. She doesn't remember any of them, doesn't recall any photographs, doesn't recall any calls or vids or correspondence. She doesn't remember her parents talking about any of them.

“Inconsiderate,” Sophia hears Joseph through the thin walls of the apartment, she can’t bring herself to call him uncle, “off-world with that husband of hers, and we never hear anything! Only random pictures of children we never even met! And now we’re expected to do what? Raise her? Take care of her spawn as if she’s one of ours?”

She vows to leave as soon as she’s 18, they want her as much as she wants them, but she knows, she knows the Alliance takes Biotics, even useless ones like hers.

“It's not like they planned to die,” Sarah’s voice is irritatingly matter-of-fact, “look, we can apply to that Alliance fund, send her for their Biotic training or something, but, like it or not, Sophia Shepard is family, we’ll just have to deal with it.”

“Bloody useless is what she is, Maria just had to go and get herself killed,” she hears an annoyed huff, Joseph’s, and part of her wants for Olivia to intervene, but she doesn't, “terraforming planets, growing hybrid crops, Earth just wasn’t enough for her, was it?”

Damn it, she misses her mum and dad. She misses Michael. She even misses the ice-chickens from Mindoir.

Their absence is a hole on her very soul, a gaping black hole threatening to swallow her and keep her in the pit of despair.

She vows not to fall in, even as she ignores the tears wetting her cheeks.


	2. (Not My) Baby

SOL SYSTEM - EARTH - CANADA - VANCOUVER - DECEMBER 1976 - Age: 22

Sophia and Edward Toombs had met during Michael’s first shore leave, back in ‘72, before she could enlist in the Alliance.

She had just turned eighteen at the time, still living with Olivia, Joseph and Sarah. Sophia couldn’t bear to call them family, not with the thinly veiled insults, the lack of care and overall the non-existent companionship between them. She could even understand why her mum and dad had kept them away. In the interim, Michael had come to represent everything she wanted; the possibility of being away from earth, and thus Olivia McCain.

Michael’s temporary flat had been tiny; it had a bed and a couch, which doubled as a second bed, a kitchen and a bathroom. Tiny, cramped and smelling of a foul combination of feet and grease, and everything Sophia could’ve wanted at that time. Alone, with acquaintances instead of friends and still grieving, it was little wonder she had fallen for the dashing soldier sharing Michael’s tiny, cramped and smelly flat.

They had fooled around for those two weeks, she had given herself to him in the back of a sky car, and they had started a long-distance thing before she went back to Olivia’s house.

They had settled on a friends with benefits thing, eventually, one disastrous attempt at a relationship later.

That had been five years ago, before she enlisted, before she had tasted battle, before she even knew what she truly wanted out of her life. Rather, what she didn't want in her life.

Sophia looked around at the nondescript clinic, the white walls and creamy undertones, the nurses and doctors walking around tending to their wards, the other women with appointments for one procedure or another.

“Are you sure about this?” Her brother asked, squeezing her hand.

“I don’t want it.” She shook her head, looking down at her flat stomach. She had gotten the standard subdermal contraceptives when she enlisted, and while she knew, logically, that no method was 100% safe, she never would’ve thought hers would fail. Not with the training she was under, not with her biotics.

“No, I know that,” Michael looked at her, an eyebrow raised, “I mean, are you sure you don’t wanna tell Toombs?”

“He would just try to talk me out of this, some weird sense of duty I think,” she sighed, slouching in her seat, “and it’s not his decision to make. He made sure it wasn’t his decision.”

“I just think-”

“Look,” she interrupted, glaring at him, “we sleep together sometimes, he made it very clear that’s all he wanted from me. Not a relationship, not even a friendship, all he wants is to fuck me.” She fumed, squeezing her eyes shut. “And I let him because he’s good at it.”

“I didn’t need to know that.”

“Then don’t ask!”

“Sophia Shepard?” The nurse called before they could start arguing again, a confused look in her eyes as she looked from one sibling to the other.

“Yeah, hi, that’s me.” She smiled without meaning to, a little on the awkward side, her stomach suddenly in knots.

“Hey, hey,” Michael stood up, taking a hold of her hand, and squeezing it again, “we got this, I’ve got your back.” She nodded at him, gripping his hand back.

“Nervous?” The nurse asked, leading them inside a room with an ultrasound machine, the screen dark, though there was a low hum to the place.

“A little, afraid it’s gonna hurt.” She shrugged, by all accounts she shouldn't be scared of a little pain.

“You’ve literally been shot at before.”

“Not in my uterus I haven’t!”

“All right,” the nurse interrupted, handing Sophia a light blue gown, “I'll need you to strip from the waist down and lay on the bed, we’re gonna start with the ultrasound, just like we talked yesterday, remember?”

She did. Ultrasound first, then the procedure, numbing her cervix then the scrapping and suction. The knots in her stomach weren’t getting any better.

She changed into the hospital gown in the attached bathroom, before entering the room again and laying down on the cold bed. This part she knew from previous exams, this part was fine, for this she had Michael to hold her hand.

Her eyes were glued to the screen as the doctor started the ultrasound. The blob inside her looked like an ink stain, vaguely shaped like a bean. Just a clump of cells, causing her a lot of trouble. She was never sleeping with Toombs ever again.

She barely noticed the nurse attaching an IV with pain medication to her arm, her eyes fixed on the screen. That little clump of cells had the potential to be a person, had the potential to grow into a fully formed baby. The thought alone made her nauseous.

“Having second thoughts?” Michael asked quietly, Sophia had been staring at the screen in apparent confusion for a good minute.

“No, I'm not parent material,” she shuddered, “at this point I just want it out of me.”

“Fair.” He sighed, fidgeting in place; from that moment on, there was nothing more he could do, it was all on her. “It’s time for me to leave, I’ll see you in a bit ok?”

She nodded, breathing deeply as the doctor started. She though the pain would be worse, but it was just a sharp cramp, near the worst menstrual cramps she had had, but still; just cramps.

Laying still in the recovery room, waiting for the meds to work through her system, she checked the messages received in the interim. Alliance Command general warnings, Sergeant Danvers with her new shipping orders, Jonathan with yet another Turian meme, ANN feed about the Batarian situation in the traverse…

Life as usual.

“Hey, how you feeling?”

“I don't know,” she breathed in deeply, turning to look at him, “like I should feel guilty, but I don't, I'm just relieved right now. It's over, I can go back to my own life.” She paused, eyes distant for a moment. “Also like mum would hate me for this.”

“Yeah, well,” he fidgeted with his hands, before dragging a chair to sit near his sister. “Mum’s not here, not anymore, who can say what she would think?”

“Olivia, or so she thinks.”

“Honestly, fuck Olivia, she’s been horrible to you ever since you met her, her opinion shouldn't matter.” The implied ‘she’s not family’ hung between them a moment too long. “Hey, did you get new orders? Danvers is sending me on supply and security missions.” He said, looking at her omni-tool. Despite both being in the fifth fleet, they rarely had missions together, something about keeping the Shepard siblings apart.

“Yeah, I haven’t opened her message yet.” She sighed again, trying to find a comfortable position, the cramps were coming over again, but she knew that was just part of the process. “Where are they sending you?”

“Terra Nova, with a supply and scout run on a nearby planet. Then Akuze, security detail for the scientists there.”

“Fun,” the sarcasm dripped from Sophia’s voice as she looked at him. “Hey, just thought I should let you know, Toombs and I? Over, forever, I just gotta notify him.”

“Hey, as long as you don’t hook-up with Jonathan,” he laughed, leaning back on the waiting chair.

“Neither of us is particularly interested, besides, I heard Turians are much more fun.” She grinned at him, full of teeth and mischief.

“Turian? Really?”

“Bigger di-”

“I really really don’t want to know.” Michael interrupted. “You wanna try Turian? Fine, just spare me the details.”

She laughed, despite the frankly shitty day, there would be good tidings ahead of them, hopefully.


End file.
